


The Voord Paradox

by merryghoul



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Episode: s05e02 The Beast Below, F/F, Implied Sexual Content, Paradox
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-26 15:24:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5009917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/pseuds/merryghoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started out with an innocent quest to find chicken sandwiches.  It grew to be a mystery that would be world-altering.  And River needs Liz Ten's help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Voord Paradox

**Author's Note:**

  * For [polkadot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/polkadot/gifts).



A renegade Smiler reunited Liz Ten and River. And their first meeting since River tried to steal _The Pandorica Opens_ wasn't what Liz thought it would be.

After learning that the star whale carrying Spaceship UK on its back volunteered to do the job, Liz passed an act known as "The Act to cease elections over the fate of the Star Whale that powers Starship UK; cease the condemnation of adult citizens over the age of sixteen to death by consummation of the Star Whale; cease detention of minors working in the Tower of London; cease the practice of altering citizens to Winders; and cease production of Smilers." The short name for the act was the "Smiler Decommission Act."

Not all Smilers consented to being decommissioned. One, a former tutor of children that sent ill-behaved children to the Tower of London, pushed the Winder assigned to decommission it down a trap door in its booth. It then hid in the Southwark area of London.

Liz tracked the renegade Smiler on her monitors in Buckingham Palace. She was about to call Hawthorne to tell him to get as many Winders as he could in the area when she saw River at a sandwich shop near London Market. She would know River's curly hair from anywhere. She decided to take a vator and meet River there herself.

By the time Liz reached London Market, River was nowhere to be found. She wasn't at the sandwich shop, and she couldn't be seen in the marketplace. Liz decided to head into the marketplace to find River.

Liz didn't find River, but the renegade Smiler found her. So Liz ran around in the marketplace for her life. 

Liz stopped when she heard a crash behind her. She turned around. River Song stood near the Smiler, now smashed into pieces. "I was hiding so I could get behind the Smiler and attack it. Your arrival was an added bonus. How could I resist serving for crown, country, and queen?"

Liz walked towards River. "How'd you do that, love, smash the Smiler into the wall?"

"It's a long story, ma'am. Let's just say I got it from my mother." River winked.

"What are you doing here?"

"Preparing for a excavation. I was going to Marinus after I picked up a few roast chicken sandwiches. Apparently in that planet's past there was a species of Voord with muscular bodies. I tried telling my client maybe these Voord exist in an alternate universe and that my assistant, Sssibeth, is ill with the space plague, but my client isn't taking no for an answer. So here I am."

"I can sneak you in to the palace. Get you a couple of sandwiches before you go on your excavation. Besides, I'm hungry. I could go for a sandwich myself."

"Do you put mayonnaise and hot sauce on your sandwiches?"

"I can have that arranged."

River grinned. She typed in the coordinates for Buckingham Palace at the current time. "Well. Let's go make sandwiches, ma'am."

"Call me Liz."

Liz took River's hand. The two went to Buckingham Palace.

 

Liz wasn't surprised to learn about a disturbance in the Royal Collection. And she wasn't surprised when the disturbance happened while she was spending a weekend at Windsor Castle. This time the disturbance was in the office of the Royal Librarian instead of one of the Royal Collection's galleries. 

River was sitting at the Royal Librarian's desk with a journal and a Voord mask. But Liz still drew her guns. "Oi, River," Liz said, putting her guns away. "Can't keep showing up without notice, love. You're not even the Royal Librarian. You shouldn't be here."

"The Honourable Lady Redgold will forgive me after I solve this." River tapped the Voord helmet. "And, if I'm not mistaken, I think I've stumbled across the makings of a bootstrap paradox."

"Bootstrap paradox?"

"It's a time travel paradox. It's a long story, Liz. You might want to sit down for this one. That and I've missed your face. I can't see it over there by the door."

Liz took a seat at the Royal Librarian's desk.

River smiled as Liz sat by the door. "That's better. Now where was I? Right. I mentioned to you I have a client for this excavation. Her name is Clara Oswald. Don't bother looking her up in the Starship UK database; she died centuries ago. I was visiting London in the twenty-first century when I ran into her. She knew I was an archeologist. I'm not sure how she knew, but I asked her not to tell me.

"Clara told me she had nightmares of the Doctor she was traveling with. She dreamed she told him she wished he was dead, and that he should run off with his nemesis, the Master. Who, at some point, regenerated into a woman and called herself Missy."

"She's a Time Lord like the Doctor."

"Yes. The two of them enslaved the Earth and then attempted to conquer Marinus in Clara's dreams. But they failed. The Voord killed Missy for good and made the Doctor--who grew out his hair and beard--their leader. She's convinced everything she's encountered is real. So I'm searching for Voord for Clara."

"What about the helmet?"

"I was getting to that." River knocked on the helmet. "Voord helmets are designed to stay in place permanently after they're first worn. This helmet has been worn." River flipped over the helmet. "This helmet's been worn. Can you see the hairs inside of it?"

Liz nodded.

"But the helmet didn't kill the user."

"What are you saying?"

"The Voord have evolved. This book says they flooded Starship UK last year and killed the Doctor, his companion at the time, Amy Pond, and you. The Voord shouldn't have evolved. My notes in my diary say nothing about the Voord evolving or the Doctor, Amy, or you dying. I need to fix time before this happens. Before we don't exist."

"Your assistant still sick? Sssibeth?"

"Yes." River paused. "Are you asking to help me out?"

"Yes."

River grabbed the Voord helmet and put it in a large knapsack that hung from her left shoulder and draped across the right side of her body. "I thought you were the bloody Queen."

"The bloody Queen is on vacation. Let's go."

 

For years, Marinus was a desert planet. Voord roamed freely here and there, but there wasn't a huge population of any sort of life form on it.

When River and Liz arrived on Marinus, there was a city that wasn't there before. A city made out of glass buildings and surrounded by a sea that smelled of strong acid and sand so hard it was glass. River looked down. "Thank goodness we landed on a glass bridge. Now, how do we get into this glass city?"

Liz pointed to her guns.

"I meant quietly."

"There's no other way around a glass city, love."

River shrugged. "You're right. Let's go smash some glass."

 

River and Liz walked around the glass city, being careful not to be seen by the Voord. And the Voord were, much to River's horror, tall, black, and muscular. The Voord evolved.

The two of them later heard a female voice approaching one of their hiding places. "My helmet. How am I going to be able to connect to the group mind without my helmet? We're on our way to conquering the galaxy. I need my helmet."

River gasped. "That's my client."

"Clara?"

"It has to be the bootstrap paradox version of her. She cares too much about the Doctor to betray him in this way."

Clara, who was wearing a Voord jumpsuit, heard River and Liz talking from their hiding place. The two Voord attendants aimed laser guns at the two of them. "You two, come out from there," Clara said.

River and Liz came out of hiding, their hands raised in the air.

Clara pointed at the bag with her helmet in it. "You there! Give me back my helmet."

River glared at Clara. "Says who?"

"Me."

"What if I don't give it to you?"

"We will annihilate you."

Liz pulled out her pistols and aimed at the Voord guards. "Not before I shoot these blokes first."

"Their suits are resistant to your bullets."

Liz aimed her pistols at Clara's head. "But is your head bullet-resistant, love?"

At that moment, River ran with Clara's helmet.

"Your helmet or your life? Choose one."

One of the Voord guards ran after River. The other pointed his laser at Liz.

River was able to evade the Voord chasing her long enough to throw Clara's helmet over a glass bridge into the acid waters below. The helmet dissolved upon impact.

With the helmet out of Clara's reach, River used her vortex manipulator to evade the Voord chasing her and, with her arm around Liz's waist, returned the two to Windsor Castle.

 

They arrived in the Royal Librarian's office. River moved her fingers in Liz's hair. Liz grabbed River's curls with her fingers. When they kissed, they felt their hearts racing, adrenaline still pumping in their blood from their Voord adventure. When they pulled back, they were all smiles and giggles.

"That our first date, River?"

"If you want it to be, Liz."

The faint noise of sloshing water could be heard from inside the office. "Do you hear that?" River said.

"Yeah."

River ran to the office window. Ten feet of water was around Windsor Castle. Bobbing in the water were the muscular Voord. 

"Liz, I think you need to see this."

Liz ran to the window. "The paradox. It's happening."

"Clara and the Voord found their way to Starship UK. Now they're flooding it so only they can live on it."

"What do we do?"

"We find Clara Oswald."

"Next time I see her, I'll--"

"Not the Clara we met on Marinus. The real Clara Oswald. We have to get her out of this paradox before it starts."

 

River's aim was to take Liz and herself to UNIT to see if they could find the Doctor. Instead, the two of them found themselves at Magpie Electricals. 

"River," Liz said after they arrived, "why are we here? I wouldn't come to this neighbourhood in a million years."

"Maybe you should. There's the TARDIS."

"How does your vortex manipulator know where the TARDIS is?"

"That's the thing. My vortex manipulator can't sense where the TARDIS is. But sometimes, when I need her the most, the TARDIS can find me. We have a bond. It's complicated."

River ran to the TARDIS doors. Liz followed her. "You trying to steal the Doctor's TARDIS?"

"There are two things you should know about me," River said as the TARDIS doors opened for her. "One: sometimes the TARDIS lets me borrow her from time to time. Two: I fly the TARDIS better than the Doctor."

"How did you learn how to fly the TARDIS?"

"It's complicated."

 

The last witness to Clara's whereabouts other than the Doctor was the TARDIS. The TARDIS took River and Liz to the last planet Clara and the Doctor were on, Hydra. There, they arrived to see Clara being chased by Voord--not the muscular types found on the impossible planet on Marinus, but the normal-looking Voord.

Clara called for the Doctor and ran faster when she saw the TARDIS. She was stunned when she saw River pulling her into the TARDIS and then flying the TARDIS away from Hydra.

"River," Clara said as River steered the TARDIS back to Magpie Electricals, "I didn't know you could fly the TARDIS."

"I can do a lot of things, sweetie. Too bad the Doctor doesn't tell you these things."

"But the Doctor said--"

"Don't tell me."

"Clara, this is Queen Elizabeth the Tenth. But you can call her Liz Ten."

"Liz Ten?"

"The current regent of Starship UK," River said. "She's been the regent for thousands of years. It's well after your death. You'd better get to know her now. You never know if you'll have another chance."

Clara stammered. "I don't know what to say."

"All you need to know is I'm a queen, love. And that you're okay."

"I'm okay?"

"You were about to accidentally cause a bootstrap paradox." River stepped away from the console and walked up to Clara. "Those Voord that were chasing you--and I assume you goaded the Doctor into taking you to Hydra to look for Voord--were about to make you their leader, and you were about to conquer the universe."

"Why would I do that?"

"You'd never do that. That's all you need to know."

River grinned at Liz, and Liz grinned back.

"River...are you _dating_ the Queen?"

"Let's just say I'm at her _service_ at the moment."

 

Predictably, the Doctor was not pleased about River stealing his TARDIS. He stood outside Magpie Electricals with a radio under his right arm. When the TARDIS doors opened, he pointed at River. "You. The Hair. Why'd you steal my TARDIS?"

"Had to save the universe, dear. You understand."

The Doctor saw Liz in the doorway. "Liz Ten, what are you doing in my TARDIS?"

"I don't know, Doctor. Why don't you ask your friend?"

Clara popped her head out of the TARDIS doors. "I didn't know you knew Liz Ten, Doctor."

"I know a lot of queens, Clara. You didn't ask me which ones I know specifically."

"You should take lessons from River, Doctor. She flies the TARDIS better than you do."

The Doctor glared at River. River winked at the Doctor.

 

River and Liz returned to Windsor Castle after the paradox was fixed. The outside of Windsor Castle appeared like it usually did--no water around the castle and no Voord floating around it.

After making sure things were back to normal, Liz said "You really at my service for the moment?"

River nodded. "Yes, Liz."

"I need your help with something."

 

To her delight, River found herself in Liz's bed, tracing every part of Liz's torso with her finger as she laid between her legs. Liz asked River to spend the rest of her holiday with her. They found their way to Liz's bed, where they spent a great deal of Liz's holiday in. Now River was in the middle of telling Liz about a dig she worked on earlier, at Liz's request. "....I would've fell to my death if Ssibeth didn't catch me. I'm still amazed the only things I lost were my shoes."

River looked up. She saw Liz was asleep. "Oh, so that's what that story's for." She climbed up to Liz's right side. "Wake me when you need me to be of service, sweetie." River looked at Liz, stroking her hair until she, too, fell asleep, dreaming of more adventures with Liz.


End file.
